Archives.com/Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Partner To Digitize One Thousand Reels Of Microfilm Lutheran Records By End Of 2012

While I was browsing the April-June 2012 issue of NGS Magazine I came a cross an announcement that was made between Archives.com and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that indicated that a partnership has been formed between the two parties.

As a result of this joint effort, approximately 1,000 reels of microfilm in the possession of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America will be digitized with a target completion time of end-of-year 2012.

Records that will be part of these microfilms contain millions of baptism, confirmation, marriage and funeral records covering Lutheran congregations throughout the United States. The digitized records will then be available through Archives.com.

(Please note that there is a planned merger between Ancestry.com and Archives.com. It is likely these records will then be available within the collections of Ancestry.com when completed.)

Digital indexes will also be created for the original parish ledger books that date from 1793 to 1940.

Nearly all of the records were handwritten in Norwegian, German, Danish, Slovakian and English.

My own personal research has been advanced through the use of Roman Catholic church records in microfilm format. So I can always understand the value that Church records provide. So for those of you with Lutheran ancestors the digitization of these records is certainly something to look forward to by the end of 2012. Looking at this kind of data in digital format can sure beat cranking the microfilm reader!

You can visit the Collections page at Archives.com to see what they data they have in their online collection. You can see this at:

Take The New Poll As Of August 7, 2017 – – – “When Was The Last Time You Visited A Local Family History Center (FHC) Of The Mormon Church?” (Not Including A Family History “Affiliate” Like A Public Library To View Microfilms.) (Select Answer From List Provided.)